BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

MASSENA -- The superintendent of schools says he believes that people not adhering to public health guidelines related to the pandemic could result in students having to be educated through remote learning, rather than in person.

Massena Central Superintendent Pat Brady made the comment while discussing with the Board of Education what led to his decision to delay in-person classes until the local coronavirus cases decline.

“If everybody follows the protocols, we’ve got the best chance to keep it out of our buildings. That message really does need to get out there,” Brady said. He is referring to wearing a mask that covers the nose and mouth when in public, frequent hand washing, staying home when sick, staying local and avoiding unnecessary travel.

He said Public Health Department officials through their contact tracing process find a lot of cases connected to people not following the recommendations.

“Public Health will tell you when they do the tracing … the lack of those things is what’s leading to this. We see people, I know kids are young … we see a lot of kids out there together who aren’t wearing their masks, other people as well. If this continues to spread, and we restart, we’ll be back in remote again,” he said.

Brady said they may choose to bring back students Sept. 28, if the local transmission drops. If not, they’re looking at Oct. 13, but “no decision has been made yet,” he said.

He said it’s hard to tell Massena’s infection rate, which is measured by the percentage of COVID-19 tests that come back positive. That’s because public health officials know where positive cases are, but they don’t know where all the negative tests come from.

“They can tell us what the rate is, because that’s based on the number of positive cases and the number tested. They can’t tell me how many specifically in Massena or our district out of how many have been tested,” he said.

“We’re still talking to Public Health, looking at the rate of the virus, if we have to make decisions in the other direction, we make those decisions,” Brady said. “At any time there can be a decision to go remote and the school shuts down for a period of time.”

There are some students coming to school, those in special education programs, because they don’t usually do as well in remote learning situations. And they’re looking at getting BOCES students back to in-person learning sooner, since most of the courses they take are hands on.